Certain passengers, such as unaccompanied minors, disabled persons, or the elderly, may require assistance when traveling on a common carrier, such as an airplane, train or ship. The specific definition of an unaccompanied minor varies from country to country and common carrier to common carrier. However, an unaccompanied minor in the United States generally is a child between the ages of 5 and 11, without the presence of a legal guardian. For unaccompanied minors when traveling by commercial air, for example, multiple airline agents before, during and after the flight are required to maintain and transfer responsibility of or authority for, the unaccompanied minor. The current process for documenting transfers of responsibility for the unaccompanied minor is a cumbersome paper process.
Typically, the unaccompanied minor's trip begins with the unaccompanied minor and an adult guardian checking in at the ticket counter. The carrier ticketing agent enters itinerary information and information about the unaccompanied minor into a networked computer system. This information includes the name of a second adult guardian who will be waiting for the unaccompanied minor at the unaccompanied minor's destination location. A ticket is printed by the ticketing agent for the unaccompanied minor's flight and then the unaccompanied minor, and their adult guardian, proceed to the departure gate for the corresponding flight.
Continuing with existing travel procedures, when the adult guardian and the unaccompanied minor check in at the departure gate the carrier gate agent prints out paper transfer documents that accompany the unaccompanied minor throughout the flight. The adult guardian signs a paper transfer document to transfer responsibility for the unaccompanied minor to the gate agent and the unaccompanied minor is left at the departure gate. A paper copy of a portion of the paper transfer documents is retained by the adult guardian. The gate agent then escorts the unaccompanied minor onto the aircraft where responsibility for the unaccompanied minor is transferred to one of the flight attendants. The flight attendant signs a paper transfer document. A copy of a portion of the paper transfer documents is retained by the gate agent. The flight attendant retains the remainder of the paper transfer documents throughout the flight. Thus, once the first adult guardian leaves the unaccompanied minor at the gate with a carrier agent there is no centralized “real time” record of the location of the minor.
After the aircraft lands at a connection or destination location, the unaccompanied minor is escorted off the aircraft by the flight attendant to a second gate agent or the second gate agent boards the aircraft to transfer responsibility for the unaccompanied minor. The second gate agent signs the paper transfer document and a portion of the transfer documents is retained by the flight attendant. If at the unaccompanied minor's destination location, the second carrier gate agent escorts the unaccompanied minor to the second adult guardian that was designated by the first adult guardian at the departure location. The second adult guardian signs the paper document and a portion of the paper packet is given to the second adult guardian, and the remainder of the paper transfer documents is retained by the second gate agent.
The first gate agent at the departure airport, the flight attendant of the flight, and the second gate agent at the destination airport each have retained a paper portion of the paper transfer documents, and are required to retain their portion for a period of time, in accordance with the carrier airline's document retention policy. No real time record of the status of any of the transfers of responsibility for the unaccompanied minor, or other information regarding the passenger, such as itinerary, contact information, location in the airport/station, e.g. if separated from gate agent or flight attendant, are stored electronically by the airline and, therefore, real-time updates regarding the unaccompanied minor's status, including detection of a possible failure of transfer to a gate agent or to a connection gate for continuing travel to a final destination, are not possible.
Similarly, disabled or elderly passengers, or other passengers requiring assistance, whom may or may not be accompanied by an escorting adult or guardian, are not presently provided with real-time monitoring to provide accommodations during travel, transfer between carrier gate agents and flight attendants, or status reports regarding their location.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure herein is presented.